The Frame: A paramedic is in trouble. A cartel thief is in trouble. Then it turns out they are each watching each other on their respective tv shows, and reality starts to melt. It's enjoyable. There could have been more mindfuckery and less procedural.
Magellan: This was solid. A one-man mission to the outer solar system in response to some alien signals. It's super low budget but the effects and the science are pretty good for what they were working with. Only the low gravity stuff was jarring.
Marjorie Prime: Like a gentle episode of Black Mirror, or like what A.I. could have been if Spielberg wasn't just relentlessly awful. It starts off a little slow but has some very nice moments about what memory is, and how we just make up our lives to some degree.
Renaissance: Sci-fi cop story in harsh digital black and white, like Sin City. It was a very pretty filter, but the story didn't keep my attention and I bailed.
Sequence Break: a haunted classic arcade game, based on the Polybius urban legend. It goes to some sticky Cronenberg places. It's ok but a little slow. And as someone who has spent a lot of time elbows-deep in arcade games, some of the technical bits bugged me. Like, you can't access the boards from the coin door. Did you guys not talk to anyone who worked at the workshop where you shot? I mean, they were right there. Also he "decodes" some binary into the words "sequence break" but it was only 6 bytes. It started off promising, but had a predictable, dumb ending.
Polar: Stylish murders, but really kind of crappy. I expected better from Ackerlund. From the visual styling, I knew immediately that it was adapted from a graphic novel. Stop doing that. You are not Scott Pilgrim. Be your own thing.
Men in Black International: Surprisingly, this was ok! Way better than #2, for sure. It was no masterpiece, but it did what it said on the can. From the reviews I assumed it would be terrible, but those were unfair. It was entirely adequate.
Aladdin: Now there was a boring piece of shit. (Speaking of your misplaced Will Smith nostalgia.) This violated the rule of cover songs: "Never remind me of a better band I could be listening to instead", in this case, Robin Williams.
Hellboy: Like Men in Black, despite the reviews, this was surprisingly ok! Not as good as the first one, (and I don't remember the second one at all) but it was perfectly adequate. Also the Big Bad was Milla Jovovitch, my future-ex-girlfriend circa 2002, who apparently does not age.
Wu Assassins: This was terrible. You make a magical chop-socky set in San Francisco and you still manage to lose the jwz vote. How do you even do that? With terrible acting, even worse plot MacGuffins ("Hello, I am Cut Scene Girl! Here is your Side Quest!") The final episode was... what even was that? This show was so bad that it was not even saved by the surprise level-boss appearance of Summer Glau, my future-ex-girlfriend circa 2007.
Dark Phonenix: Have there been like 25 X Men movies by now, in 27 timelines? This is one of them and it's just utterly bland. Jean's whole conflict is "she has a sad", the villains are one note and unmotivated even for an X Men movie and everything just sort of plods from one mark to the next. Also why did they cast the same person to play both Cyclops and Beast? Don't try and tell me those weren't the same guy.
The Dead Don't Die: This was extremely goofy. It wasn't bad, and it kept my attention, but there wasn't a whole lot there. I wasn't sure what to expect from a Jim Jarmusch zombie movie, but it turns out the answer is, it's pretty much what you'd expect from a Wes Anderson zombie movie.
The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance: I only made it 3/4ths of the way through the first episode. Even as someone with a fetish for practical effects, I have to ask: is it possible to tolerate this show if you are neither: 8 years old; nor, have smoked a "Brad Pitt as Floyd in True Romance" amount of weed first?
A text exchange that happened just as I was composing this:
I can confirm. I wanted to turn it off, but viewing-partner suffers from a horrible case of nostalgia for the show.
Lots of weed was a workable resolution.
Yes it is possible to like Dark Crystal without being high. I wasn't even drinking.
Though I did find the first episode slow, and I can't tell how much nostalgia is playing into my perceptions. Second episode much better pacing. Still might be the nostalgia talking.
Hobbes and Shaw was stupid in every way you would expect but I left feeling rather entertained. The Rock, Statham and Elba? What?
I want to see a movie where the John Wick and Fast and Furious worlds overlap and Keanu and Statham fight to the death at the end.
Once Upon a Time ... In Hollywood would be okay if you don't mind watching Tarantino masturbate all over the screen for a couple hours. I mind.
I'm not high, but maybe too nostalgic, so Dark Crystal is tolerable but not great. The practical muppet effects are far inferior to when Jim Henson was alive, and the CGI and lens flaring looks awful. The story gets better after the very talky first ep, but there's a lot of problems and it's utterly pointless because you know the Skeksis win.
Have you seen In Fabric, High Life, or Aniara? Pretty sure at least a couple of them would be up your alley.
I took a chance on MIB: International, based on your comments. I thought it was a solid flick with really great effects and foley work. Also, I'm STILL laughing at, "it did what it said on the can."
I watched the whole movie looking for that, where was it?